Spring Creek Correctional Center is an Alaska Department of Corrections maximum security prison for men located in Seward, Alaska, United States. The prison is located approximately 125 mi south of Anchorage. The prison is located on about 328 acre of land surrounded by national parks. The prison capacity consists of over 500 inmates and 97 correctional officers. Built as a decentralized campus, the prison construction was completed in 1988 at a cost of $44,678,000. A large portion of the prisoner population consists of "hard core" felons who committed violent crimes, such as murder. The Alaska DOC says that these prisoners "will probably spend the rest of their life in prison." Spring Creek also houses prisoners who committed less serious crimes like assault and burglary and usually have sentences from three years to ten years.

Operational history

In the prison's history, there have been two murders inside the prison, one escape and at least one failed escape plot.

Murders

In 2004, Spring Creek inmate Carl Abuhl, already incarcerated for another murder, killed his cellmate Gregory Beaudoin. Abuhl was convicted of Beaudoin's murder and sentenced to an additional 30 years in prison. In 2008, convicted murderer John Carlin III was beaten to death in Spring Creek. Carlin was the alleged co-conspirator in the case of Mechele Linehan, a former stripper convicted in the death of her former fiancé Kent Leppink.

Escapes and escape attempts

An escape involving two inmates from Spring Creek occurred in 1994; both were subsequently recaptured. A second, unrelated escape plot in 2001 was unsuccessful.

2015 incident

In July 2015 a distraught woman from North Pole approached the prison gates with a gun and demanded that "murderers" be freed. She proceeded to shoot herself in the head when the prison did not immediately comply. Although prison staff responded and applied CPR, the woman died from the head wound within a few hours. Her exact motivations or possible relationship to inmates at Spring Creek are unknown.

Notable inmates

MSNBC documentary

Spring Creek was profiled in an MSNBC documentary entitled Lockup: Spring Creek, Alaska. Numerous Spring Creek inmates were profiled, including Carl Abuhl, John Bright and Cordell Boyd.